The Tin Drum

The haunting and serious voice of Fred Williams matches well this haunting story of a German boy who refuses to grow up. Williams reads with a slight Gerrman accent, which matches this work, considered by many to be greatest post-WWII German novel, written by a Nobel laureate in literature. Written in 1959, the story presents the world of Nazi Germany from the perspective of Oskar Matzerath and follows his experiences before and during the Second World War. Not surprisingly, the overriding theme of this dark comedy is the madness of violence and war. M.L.C. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine


Can a first-person narrator like Oskar Matzerath, who is confined to psychiatric hospital, be considered reliable? Did the events he recounts really happen to him? Did the characters he describes really live? We can be sure that Oskar lived through WWII in Danzig and later went to DŸsseldorf, but not much else. Breon Mitchell's new translation of THE TIN DRUM shows it to be the masterpiece it is, and Paul Michael Garcia's performance--sometimes melodramatic, sometimes at (or over) the edge of hysteria--serves it well. Some of the voices don't stand out as individuals, but this is so thoroughly Oskar's story book that Garcia could very well have made that choice deliberately. Together, Garcia, Grass, and Mitchell take listeners on a tour of love, war, and madness. D.M.H. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine